“DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure. And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn’t been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense…”

Because in reality, while Ricketts and the notice point to business they conceal what the true interest actually is: union-busting.

In the months prior to the website shut-down, DNAinfo and Gothamist-network workers, including their journalist teams, were negotiating and discussing unionization. In April 2017, they signed the cards to unionize.

After the shut-down, the Writer’s Guild of America East, the association the journalists unionized under, came forward in a statement that the workers were threatened during the negotiations and organizing saying, “It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the organizing drive.”

While an earlier investigation by Splinter News in July 2017 revealed that Gothamist co-founder Jake Dobkin is alleged through off-record statements to have implied a website shut-down if unionization was continually pursued.

“As long as it’s my money that’s paying for everything, I intend to be the one making the decisions about the direction of the business… We’re either going to make this business successful together or we won’t. And, frankly, I’m not interested in a company with an “us” versus “them” dynamic.”

Later, in a post to his personal blog in September 2017, Ricketts doubled down on unions stating, “unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed. And that corrosive dynamic makes no sense in my mind.” A DNAinfo spokesperson then confirmed this view in a statement saying, “The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle.”

Ricketts thus paints a picture of once being at least outwardly supportive of local journalism through his media acquisitions, until the workers became a threat to the billionaire’s unchecked power. Then, they had to be stopped.

Undoubtedly this shut-down is a loss for Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, and other cities historically served by Gothamist-family websites as powerful and reliable local news sources. But in addition to this loss of great journalism, it cannot be ignored that the DNAinfo and Gothamist shut-down and removal of journalists’ works, albeit temporary, was also a direct response to a movement of the workers.

It cannot be ignored that this is symptomatic of larger structures disempowering workers. It cannot be ignored that large corporate entities and billionaires will stop at nothing to protect their own interests under this insidious, exploitative, profit-driven capitalist system.

So deeply insidious, that those in power would go to any lengths, including workers who empower themselves losing their jobs without notice, firing those who dissent, and denying access to those who question, all to keep their wealth and power to themselves. It cannot be erased that the Gothamist and DNAinfo shut-down was an intentional, retributive attempt to thwart socialist empowerment of the people and reinforce capitalist exploitation. To erase this would be to contribute to the silencing of their cause and perpetuate the very exploitation that workers are constantly fighting to dismantle.